Stephen Kempa

Stephen is an associate in Cozen O'Connor's Global Insurance Department in Philadelphia. He focuses his practice on both first-party and third-party liability coverage. Stephen also has experience assisting clients on a wide-range of commercial litigation matters.

Stephen graduated with his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and received his Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in history and political science from Rutgers. While at UVA Law, Stephen was a member of the Virginia Law & Business Review and received a Pro Bono Certificate of Recognition for Pro Bono Service Hours.

Experience

Secured a jury verdict of almost $1 million on behalf of our insurance company client, which was sued for breach of contract and bad faith by a homeowner whose 11,000 sq. ft. home burned to the ground. After an investigation revealed that the plaintiff was involved in setting the home ablaze, the client denied her claim for violation of the policy's concealment or fraud condition and application of the intentional acts exclusion. The plaintiff sought damages of $11.2 million, and the client counterclaimed to recover its investigation costs and advance payments made to the plaintiff. After six days of testimony and argument, the jury found in the client's favor after only three hours of deliberation.

Publications

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This year was off to a positive start in the realm of property insurance with a decision out of the Second Circuit upholding an at times embattled policy provision that is found in nearly every...

Earlier this month, a Massachusetts Appellate Court affirmed a trial court’s award of bad faith damages in a case where it found the insurer’s approach to a claim to be “at best inattentive, if not incompetent.” Although the state appellate court in McLaughlin et al. v. American States Insurance...

This month, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion that reminds insurance carriers and their counsel that it is often beneficial to remove certain cases to federal court. While federal court offers many advantages in insurance litigation, the recent opinion in Camp v. N.J. Mfrs. Ins....

In an article titled “U.S. Supreme Court to Consider Federal Procedure Questions,” Stephen Miller, a member of Cozen O’Connor’s Commercial Litigation Department, and Stephen Kempa, an associate in the Commercial Litigation Department, discuss several U.S. Supreme Court cases dealing with important issues in the area of federal practice and procedure.

The FCC recently signaled its intention to move aggressively into the realm of data security regulation. On October 24, 2014, the agency released a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL), ordering two telecommunication companies to pay a combined $10 million forfeiture for failing to...

Businesses that operate in the European Union (EU) may soon face a new set of data protection regulations. High-level discussions about a proposal to consolidate all individual EU-member nations’ data protection regulations into a single EU law are set to restart this month. If those negotiations...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is increasingly focused on the technology sector and is using its monitoring and enforcement powers to crack down on alleged consumer protection violations by big tech firms.
Google reached a major settlement with the FTC this month, agreeing to pay $19 million...